A tasty ingredient for a risotto or an omelette, free food to be foraged from fields or woods, a supernatural structure that springs up overnight in ‘fairy rings’. While mushrooms could conjure up any or none of these suggestions, it’s defined as a fungus of many varieties and two distinct types: cultivated and wild. Not to be confused with inedible, often-poisonous toadstools, mushrooms refer to common edible fungus of fields and meadows. Toadstools should always be approached with caution, but not all mushrooms are as innocent and edible as you might think either – some are poisonous, such as fly amanita or green-spored lepiota. That’s why it’s critical to know what you’re dealing with when foraging for fungi – if you’re in any doubt or can’t ask an expert, don’t go there.